The Hair Accessory Phenomenom...

When it comes to hair accessories in this country, the slogan seems to be, "The more the merrier!" I snapped this picture of one of my students yesterday. Keep in mind, this is a subtle example of the hair accessory phenomenom... Usually my girls have anywhere between 5 and 10 different barrette's, clips, ribbons, etc... in their hair at any given time. The rule of thumb seems to be, the younger they are, the more they should wear. Sometimes bedazzled playboy bunny barette's even pop up on my 1st graders! I'm not gonna lie... It's kinda funny!

Sweet Irony

Yesterday, I wrote about eating Octopus for lunch at school and mentioned how I wondered what ever happened to having corn dogs for lunch... Well today, we HAD THEM! I couldn't believe it! The funniest part though, was the fact that they were served with rice and yellow Indian curry.

Walking to Class!

At my school, students switch classrooms for English, Science, Music, and Dance class (Yes, they have a dance class once a week!). When they switch classrooms, the follow a very organized and precise ritual. They make 2 lines; 1 girl line and 1 boy line, and it's organized by height.

They all line up in the hallway outside their classroom and hold their books against their chests. When they are all in place, they walk, single file to their next class! Oh, and the teachers never have to tell them what to do... It's all student run. It's amazing! I snapped this picture when the 6th graders were coming to class this morning!

My Little Babies!

I love, love, love teaching my kindergarten class!

Everyday, when I walk in, this is what I see! They are always sitting on this bench, and they always turn around, smile, wave, scream "wwaaaaa!! (The Korean version of: yea!!)" and say "Hi teacher!" (I taught them that!)


Today we worked on our ABC's! I'm amazed everytime I teach that class how my creative juices flow! I remember before I came here, being scared to death that I would end up teaching little kids, because I had no idea what to do with them! Now, I'm a natural and wouldn't want it any other way! I have no idea, sometimes, how I ever taught High Schoolers!!

They loved this game that I made up on the spot! (The lady, 2nd from the right, is Rina... She's my teacher's aid in that class! I absolutely adore her.)


We started learning to write the alphabet this week! I knew kids would rather write on white boards than paper, so I bought these nifty little boards! They were a big hit! Notice some of them are already starting to write in bubble letters! I'm just that good of a writing teacher (insert sarcasm)!!


Then we did some coloring! They didn't know it, but they were learning English while they colored!


How great are the colors I chose for them to color Pooh?! They had to wait for me to tell them what color each number would be... I did that so they wouldn't cheat and color things before I told them what to do! (I made this by the way! I found Pooh online and used the paint program to insert the numbers... My kindergarten teacher used to do this same thing and I loved it.)


My little munchkins! (5 of them were absent today because of a cold...)


Tah dah!


This is how we say goodbye every Tuesday! We put our hands in the shape of a heart on our heads and say "Bye bye, I love you!"


... and then give each other a nice big squeeze!


You wonder why I'm in Korea... This is just one of the hundreds of reasons!

Octopussy, mmmm!

We had octopus jap che for lunch today and all of the teachers were saying things like: "The octopussy is very good today." or "Oh, octopussy! mmmm" I'm not sure why they call it that, but it definitely still makes me laugh!

On another note... I still can't believe I eat this stuff for lunch! Can you?! What ever happened to getting pizza and french fries, or a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, or corn dogs for lunch at school?! Octopus pasta, really?!